Formal specification and runtime detection of temporal properties for asynchronous context

Formal specification and runtime detection of temporal properties for pervasive context is one of the primary approaches to achieving context-awareness. Though temporal logics have been widely used in specification of temporal properties, they are faced with severe challenges in Pervasive Computing (PvC) scenarios. First, temporal logics are traditionally defined over infinite traces of possible system behavior. However in PvC scenarios, applications observe finite prefixes of (potentially infinite) traces of environment state evolution, and adapt their behavior accordingly. Second, specification and detection of temporal properties are challenged by the intrinsic asynchrony of PvC environments. Discussions above necessitate a systematic approach to formal specification and runtime detection of temporal properties for asynchronous context. To this end, we propose CTL3 (3-valued Computation Tree Logic), which i) adopts 3-valued semantics to capture the inconclusiveness when applications only observe finite prefixes of environment state evolution; ii) inherits the notion of branching time to capture the uncertainty resulting from the asynchrony of PvC environments. A case study is conducted to demonstrate how CTL3 supports context-awareness in PvC scenarios. The runtime checking algorithm of CTL3 is implemented and evaluated over MIPA - the open-source context-aware middle-ware we developed. The case study demonstrates the necessity of adopting CTL3 in PvC scenarios, while the performance measurements show the cost-effectiveness of runtime checking contextual properties in CTL3.

[1]  S. C. Kleene,et al.  Introduction to Metamathematics , 1952 .

[2]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system , 1978, CACM.

[3]  A. Pnueli.  The Temporal Semantics of Concurrent Programs , 1979, Theor. Comput. Sci..

[4]  Mordechai Ben-Ari,et al.  The temporal logic of branching time , 1981, POPL '81.

[5]  Jeannette M. Wing.  A specifier's introduction to formal methods , 1990, Computer.

[6]  Keith Marzullo,et al.  Consistent detection of global predicates , 1991, PADD '91.

[7]  Ozalp Babaoglu,et al.  Consistent global states of distributed systems: fundamental concepts and mechanisms , 1993 .

[8]  Vijay K. Garg,et al.  Detection of Strong Unstable Predicates in Distributed Programs , 1996, IEEE Trans. Parallel Distributed Syst..

[9]  Patrice Godefroid,et al.  Model Checking Partial State Spaces with 3-Valued Temporal Logics , 1999, CAV.

[10]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Providing architectural support for building context-aware applications , 2000 .

[11]  David Garlan,et al.  Project Aura: Toward Distraction-Free Pervasive Computing , 2002, IEEE Pervasive Comput..

[12]  Klara Nahrstedt,et al.  A Middleware Infrastructure for Active Spaces , 2002, IEEE Pervasive Comput..

[13]  Friedemann Mattern,et al.  Virtual Time and Global States of Distributed Systems , 2002 .

[14]  Radha Jagadeesan,et al.  On the Expressiveness of 3-Valued Models , 2002, VMCAI.

[15]  Roy H. Campbell,et al.  An infrastructure for context-awareness based on first order logic , 2003, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

[16]  Christel Baier,et al.  PROBMELA: a modeling language for communicating probabilistic processes , 2004, Proceedings. Second ACM and IEEE International Conference on Formal Methods and Models for Co-Design, 2004. MEMOCODE '04..

[17]  Friedemann Mattern,et al.  Detecting causal relationships in distributed computations: In search of the holy grail , 1994, Distributed Computing.

[18]  Jadwiga Indulska,et al.  Developing context-aware pervasive computing applications: Models and approach , 2006, Pervasive Mob. Comput..

[19]  Grigore Rosu,et al.  Parametric and Sliced Causality , 2007, CAV.

[20]  Vijay K. Garg,et al.  Formal Verification of Simulation Traces Using Computation Slicing , 2007, IEEE Transactions on Computers.

[21]  Christel Baier,et al.  Principles of model checking , 2008 .

[22]  Jiannong Cao,et al.  Concurrent Event Detection for Asynchronous consistency checking of pervasive context , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications.

[23]  Shing-Chi Cheung,et al.  Partial constraint checking for context consistency in pervasive computing , 2010, TSEM.

[24]  Jiannong Cao,et al.  A Lattice-Theoretic Approach to Runtime Property Detection for Pervasive Context , 2010, UIC.

[25]  Jiannong Cao,et al.  Middleware Support for Context-awareness in Asynchronous Pervasive Computing Environments , 2010, 2010 IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing.

[26]  Martin Leucker,et al.  Runtime Verification for LTL and TLTL , 2011, TSEM.

[27]  Jiannong Cao,et al.  Runtime Detection of the Concurrency Property in Asynchronous Pervasive Computing Environments , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.